t LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, i 
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{UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.} 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 

7 *-7^ or 

THE RELATION OF CHRIST TO CHRISTIANITY. 



" Tbv Xpiarbv rov deov" — Luke ix. 20. 



By Eev. EOBEET DAVIDSON, D.D., 

PASTOR OF THE FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, HUNTINGTON, L. I. 




PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 
No. 821 CHESTNUT STREET. 

J V ^ 



3^ 



Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by 

THE TRUSTEES OF Til" 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 
of Pennsylvania. 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotypers, Philada. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface , 5 

CHAPTER I. 
The Humanity of Christ Ignored in the Early Ages of 
the Church — Since the Reformation — His Divinity — 
Christology Attracting the Attention of the Present 
Age — The Orthodox Doctrine Stated 7 

CHAPTER II. 

Importance of Settling the Question — Channing — No 
Christianity without Christ — Comte — Collyer — This. is 
a Practical Question % 14 

CHAPTER III. 

The Relation of Christ to Christianity Defined — Chris- 
tianity a Remedial Scheme — Trench — Four Errors 23 

CHAPTER IV. 

The Old Line of Argument — Names, Attributes, Works 
of God — Divine Worship 32 



4 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER V. 

PAGE 

Argument from Christ's Own Claims and Assertions — He 
Allowed Worship — David's Lord — "For my Name's 
Sake" — " Greater than Jonas or Solomon" — Affirmed 
his Messiahship — One with the Father — Neither De- 
ceived nor a Deceiver — Alpha and Omega 36 

CHAPTER VI. 

Argument from his Intercession as a Claimant and Equal 
— The Mediator not a Man — Nor an Angel — But an 
Equal — " My Fellow" — " Equal with God " — " Father, 
I will" 44 

CHAPTER VII. 

Argument from Christ's Suprahuman Excellence — Want 
of Education, yet Eloquent — Balance of Faculties — His 
Doctrines — Piety Admitted, yet without a Trace of 
Penitence — Conclusion from Perfection of Manhood... 56 



NOTES. 

I. "The Christ," a title 66 

II. Christ a Redeemer 67 

III. Jesus, Alpha and Omega 69 

IV. Christ, an Historical Person 72 



PBEFACE. 



The following discourse was preached as the Mod- 
erator's Sermon before the Synod of New York, at 
their session in Brooklyn, Oct. 14, 1867, and had 
the good fortune to be succeeded by a request for 
publication. With this flattering request the author 
complies the more readily, that it gives him the op- 
portunity to enlarge the sermon into a dissertation, 
by adding the matter which the restricted limits of 
a sermon forbade to be presented at the time it was 
delivered. 

It is due to himself to mention that the substance 
of this dissertation, in a less expanded and complete 
form, was published so long ago as 1835, in the Cin- 
cinnati Journal and Luminary, of which his lamented 
friend, the late Rev. Dr. Thomas Brainerd, was the 
editor. The essays were three in number, and were 
entitled "Three Arguments for the Divinity of 
Christ. ' ' The author begs that this early publica- 



6 



PREFACE. 



tion may be borne in mind as an act of simple justice 
to himself, that he may not be charged with pla- 
giarism, or with being indebted for his ideas to more 
recent authors, as Young and Eayne of England, 
and Drs. Bushnell, Schaff and Scott of . America. 
The only obligation under which he lies to these able 
writers is, that since he began to prepare these 
pages for the press he has examined their works, 
with a view to "lard his lean soil with their fat- 
ness;" of which due acknowledgment is made in 
every instance. But he must be allowed to insist 
that the staple is original — "a poor thing, but mine 
own!" The title of Peter Bayne's little book, "The 
Testimony of Christ to Christianity," is so like the 
title of the present brochure, "The Kelation of Christ 
to Christianity," that the ear of a superficial ob- 
server might be deceived by the jingle of sound; 
but that is the chief similarity. At any rate, it is 
sufficient to say that Mr. Bayne's book was not read 
until after these pages had been written. 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



CHAPTER I. 

THE QUESTION STATED. 

IN the early ages of the Church there was 
a striking tendency to depreciate or even 
ignore the humanity of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and to exalt the divine nature at the 
expense of the human. Our Lord himself, 
after his resurrection, had occasion to correct 
the misapprehensions of his disciples who 
thought that they had seen a spirit. " Han- 
dle me and see," said he, " for a spirit hath 
not flesh and bones as ye see me have." 
Luke xxiv. 39. Paul felt it necessary to 
frame an argument to convince the Hebrews 
that the human nature of Christ was no 
ground of rejection. Heb. ii. 14. And there 

1 



8 



THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



were persons in John's time who denied that 
Jesus Christ was come in the flesh, whom the 
apostle rebuked as Antichrist. 1 John iv. 3. 

After the apostolic age there rose up a 
variety of sects and heresies, exhibiting in a 
remarkable degree ( Arianism being the sole 
exception) a tendency to set aside the proper 
humanity of our Lord. Such were some of 
the Gnostics and the Docete, who denied to 
Jesus a true body, representing him as a 
phantasm ; while the Patripassians and the 
Apollinarians denied to him a reasonable soul, 
pretending that the divine intelligence sup- 
plied the place of a human mind. The 
Monophysites contended for only one na- 
ture, which swallowed up the humanity ; the 
Monothelites for only a single will, or rather 
perhaps for the absorption of the human will 
in the divine. 

Since the Reformation the tendency has 
been decidedly in the opposite direction. The 
Socinians of Poland, and the Unitarians of 
England and America, have advanced opin- 
ions greatly derogatory to the dignity of the 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



9 



Redeemer, and reducing him to the level of 
ordinary men. A few, indeed, like Dr. 
Samuel Clarke, have rested in semi-Arianism ; 
or, like the amiable Channing, have vaguely 
believed " Jesus Christ to be more than a hu- 
man being/'* and have not hesitated to call 
him a " Divine Saviour but the prevailing 
tendency is unmistakably downward, to the 
sheer Humanitarianism of Priestly and The- 
odore Parker. The latter did not blush to 
say that there might arise future Christs as 
much superior to the prophet of Nazareth as 
he was superior to all that had preceded him. 
At a recent convention in New York ground 
was taken by some of the Progressives that 
shocked the staid and sedate Unitarian of 
the old school, while others openly abjured 
and. scoffed at the use of the title " Lord 
Jesus Christ." So little consentaneity is there 
among those who deviate from the simplicity 
of evangelical truth ! They have, and can 
have, no common creed, and they glory in 
their discord — 

* SchafTs Person of Christ, App. p. 339. 



10 



THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



" A universal hubbub wild 
Of stunning sounds and voices all confused, 
Borne through the hollow dark." 

The fate of all aberrations from the essen- 
tial faith of the Church catholic may be 
easily foreseen. It is shadowed forth by the 
history of the past. Truth is one and con- 
sistent ; Error is multiform and inconsistent. 
Free therefore from apprehensions for the 
safety of the Church, we may quietly look on 
and leave the advocates of the various schemes 
of error to turn their arms against each other. 
Strauss demolishes the nationalist Paulus, 
and the legendary Renan in turn annihilates 
the mythical Strauss. So the latest wave 
washes away the traces of the preceding 
waves ; and one poison is neutralized in the 
pharmacopoeia by another poison. " So let 
all thine enemies perish, O Lord ! but let 
them that love thee be as the sun when he 
goeth forth in his might !" 

Cautiously steering midway between ex- 
tremes, the catholic faith has constantly set- 
tled down upon the tenet tersely expressed in 



THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



11 



the Westminster Catechisms, that " Christ, 
the Son of God became man by taking to 
himself a true body and a reasonable soul ;' ? 
or, in the more subtle and discriminating 
language of the Athanasian creed, " not by 
the conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but 
by the taking of the manhood unto God. One 
altogether, not by confusion of substance, but 
by unity of person. For as the rational soul 
and the flesh is one man, so God and man is 
one Christ/' 

There are two ideas here suggested which 
deserve attention. The first idea is, that the 
unity of person does not consist in the God- 
head charging or being lost or absorbed in 
the manhood, or the reverse; but in the tak- 
ing of the manhood unto God. The other 
idea is, that as the rational soul and the flesh 
is one man, so God and man is one Christ. 
The union of soul and body, two distinct and 
totally foreign substances — one material, the 
other immaterial — is an admirable illustration 
of the possibility and mode of the hypos- 
tatical union. Nor should any one sneer at 



12 "THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



the difficulties of the latter dogma till he has 
successfully solved and unriddled those of 
the union of soul and body in one man. 

Against no doctrine, the inspiration of the 
Scriptures excepted, have the assaults of the 
modern school of freethinkers been more 
vehemently and more ably directed than the 
divinity of Christ. There is indeed nothing 
of the bitterness of the Encyclopaedists, the 
coarse ribaldry of Paine, or the polished but 
ill-concealed sneer of Gibbon; there has been 
a total change of front, an introduction of 
new tactics, and, it must be confessed, a great 
improvement in the management of the con- 
troversy. The advocates of Orthodoxy are 
now called to measure weapons with men of 
thorough learning, acute criticism and refined 
taste. 

" Theirs the stern joy the warriors feel, 
In foemen worthy of their steel." 

The vigour of these recent attacks has 
aroused corresponding vigour of reply ; and I 
deem it not at all out of place to say here 



THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



13 



that this country has no reason to be ashamed 
of the efforts which have been put forth by 
some of its own sons in the field of Apolo- 
getics. The spurs which they had won in 
other fields have not been tarnished in this. 

The subject of Christology is thus forced 
upon our attention as one of the great con- 
troversies of the age. Any new line of argu- 
ment, or any readjustment of the old — what- 
ever may serve to make us masters of the 
situation, whatever tends to illustrate or settle 
the great question of the relation of Christ 
to Christianity, should be welcome to every 
pious and reflecting mind. 

The investigation on which it is now pro- 
posed to enter comprises — I. The importance 
of settling the relation of Christ to Chris- 
tianity ; II. Ascertaining what that relation 
is; and III. Weighing the proofs which go 
to establish it. 
2 



CHAPTEE II. 



IMPORTANCE OF THE QUESTION. 

THE importance of settling the relation 
of Christ to Christianity has been con- 
tested. It has been maintained that it is not 
a vital or practical question. Dr. Channing 
asked, " Must we know his precise rank in 
the universe, his precise power and influence? 
On all these points, indeed, just views would 
be gratifying and auxiliary to virtue. But 
love to Christ may exist and grow strong 
without them. ... I desire indeed, to know 
Christ's rank in the universe; but rank is 
nothing, except as it proves and manifests 
superior virtue. High station only degrades 
a being who fills it unworthily." Channing's 
Discourses, disc. x. p. 251. 

The view thus presented appears jejune 

14 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



15 



and frigid in the extreme. Such cool reason- 
ing is the poles apart from the seraphic glow 
of Rutherford, or even the more moderate 
warmth of John Newton. It involves low 
and inadequate conceptions of the sinfulness 
of sin, of human depravity, of the rigour of 
the divine law, of the inflexibility of God's 
justice, of the necessity of an atonement. 
Great sin needs a great Saviour. Depths of 
misery require a divine Redeemer. It seems 
to us that the sinner who has an adequate 
sense of his guilt cannot rest satisfied with 
less than God for his Saviour. 

To this let us add the argument from the 
appeal to our gratitude and from the conde- 
scension of Christ. The higher his rank in 
the universe, the more refulgent is the splen- 
dour thrown upon his generous self-sacrifice, 
and the greater must be our tribute to his 
worth. And the higher his rank in the uni- 
verse, the lower must he stoop and the more 
conspicuous is his condescension. Take away 
this view of the subject, and you emasculate 
the noble argument of Paul in the second 



16 "THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians. In 
that passage it is his aira to inculcate the 
duty of condescension to inferiors on our 
part from the example of Christ, " who, be- 
ing in the form of God, thought it not rob- 
bery to be equal with God, but made himself 
of no reputation, and took upon him the 
form of a servant and humbled himself." 
To the construction of such an argument, 
Christ's rank in the universe is vitally im- 
portant. The whole conclusion is lame and 
impotent if this premise be eliminated. 

Were Christ indeed on a level with other 
founders of states,, or religions, or systems of 
philosophy, we might admit the position that 
rank is of no consequence. For truly it mat- 
ters nothing who or what was the author of 
the Newtonian philosophy, or the Atomic 
theory, or the Code Napoleon. Thousands 
may live under these systems, and derive 
benefit from them without either knowing or 
caring for their authors. There is nothing, 
and need be nothing, of personal attachment 
or interest connected with them. But it is 



THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



17 



not so with the Founder of Christianity. It 
is not a system he founded, but a faith. It 
involves personality at every step. We are 
not charged simply to believe what Christ 
has taught — we are not directed to believe 
Christ— but in very peculiar, expressive and 
emphatic phraseology we are enjoined to be- 
lieve in Christ, to believe on Christ. It is a 
personal confidence, a personal trust, that is 
required. This is the more necessary because 
Christ is not a dead hero or a defunct legis- 
lator, whose memory has evaporated into a 
mere sentiment. He is still living, to apply 
and administer his system. It is a govern- 
ment, an organization, of which he continues 
the active head. "He ever liveth to mat 3 
intercession for us." He is at this day the 
Prophet, Priest and King of his people. His 
is a personal supervision; theirs a personal 
attachment. 

The eloquent writer just quoted subjoins, 
in a subsequent part of the same discourse, 
the following language of no less truth than 
beauty, and very apposite to the subject we 

2 * 



18 "THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



are arguing: "Jesus is his religion embodied 
and made visible. . . . There is no such thing 
as Christianity without Christ. It is not a 
book which Jesus wrote. It is his conver- 
sation, his character, his history, his life, his 
death, his resurrection. He pervades it 
throughout. In loving him we love his re- 
ligion ; and a just interest in this cannot be 
awakened but by contemplating it as it shone 
forth in him. Christ's religion, I have said, 
is very imperfect without himself." Chan- 
ning's Dise. pp. 264, 265. Is it not strangely 
inconsistent that a writer who could utter 
such charming sentiments should contend 
that it is idle to inquire into Christ's rank in 
the universe? Truly did he say, "There is 
no such thing as Christianity without Christ." 
John Randolph, in his caustic way, said the 
same thing of the scheme we are discussing : 
" It is like the play of Hamlet with the part 
of Hamlet left out !" 

"There is no such thing as Christianity 
without Christ !" And yet it is among the 
latest news that Auguste Comte's Positive 



THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



19 



Religion has actually assumed the concrete 
form ; and a Church of Science has been 
started in London, with divers literary names 
connected with the movement. The plan of 
the author comprehended a hierarchy and 
gorgeous ritual, feast-days and litanies, stat- 
uary and fine music. Its calendar is to com- 
memorate sages, poets, inventors, teachers, 
from Moses to Mohammed ; even the follow- 
ers of Jesus are included — St. Paul, St. 
Augustine, Bossuet; but the name of Jesus 
himself is omitted. In this omission it 
stands rebuked by the domestic chapel of the 
Roman emperor Alexander Severus. "There 
was no room for him in the inn." What a 
monstrous concoction is this ! a worship with- 
out a personal God, a religion without a reve- 
lation, a church without a Christ ! 

But even this, monstrous as it is, has been 
outstripped by a discourse recently delivered. 
A popular preacher is reported as having 
said (in a sermon whose title was, " What 
constitutes a Christian ?"), " Every one who 
lives a true Christian life, who strives for 



20 



THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



better and nobler thoughts and actions, is a 
branch of the true Vine, no matter though he 
disclaim all outward connection with any 
visible Church. It matters not even if he 
refuse to acknowledge Christ; Christ will 
acknowledge him if he does his work. Rob- 
ert Colly er's Sermon: N. Y. Observer, Oct., 
1867. If this is not " Christianity without 
Christ," what can be so called? We have 
heard of the Broad Church, but this is the 
broadest of the broad. It flatly contradicts 
what Christ has said of those w T ho refuse to 
confess him before men. With what pres- 
cience did our Lord say, " I am come in my 
Father's name, and ye receive me not ; if 
another shall come in his own name, him ye 
will receive." John v. 43. 

We are told that the doctrine which we 
advocate is only a speculative opinion, of no 
practical value. But no truth revealed in 
God's word is without some practical value, 
as even the bells and pomegranates on the high 
priest's robe symbolized the necessity of fruit 
as well as sound. The crucial test of this 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 21 



question is, after all, an experimental one. 
It is a fact too well known to be called in 
question, that those evangelical Christians 
who gather out of the Scriptures the value 
and preciousness of the work of redemption 
and the harmonious scheme of the gospel, do 
dwell with delight on the love of the Father, 
the mediatorial work of the Son, the effica- 
cious operations of the Spirit. With all such 
the doctrine of the Trinity is an intensely 
practical question. They profess to derive 
the very life of their souls from it ; they rely 
on it for the understanding of the Scripture 
itself, and for instruction in the path of duty ; 
they cling to it for assistance to resist temp- 
tation ; they fly to it in distress for comfort 
and support; they regulate their daily life 
according to its impressions upon their hearts. 
In fine, every prayer they offer is addressed 
to the Father in the name of his equal Son 
and through the equal Spirit. Is there no 
practical influence discernible in all this, and 
in other particulars that might be specified ? 
No, no ! we cannot for a moment admit that 



22 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



the doctrine of Christ's pre-existence and 
divinity is not vital and practical in the esti- 
mation and personal experience of the friends 
of Orthodoxy. Negative testimony can never 
counterbalance positive. The unregenerate 
may consistently deny what they have never 
known by experience ; but not those who can 
say, " We speak what we do know, and testify 
what we have seen." John iii. 11. "He that 
believeth hath the witness in himself." 1 
John v. 10. 

a A Christian dwells, like Uriel, in the sun ; 
Meridian evidence puts doubt to flight, 
And ardent hope anticipates the skies." 



CHAPTER III. 



THE QUESTION DEFINED. 

HAVING shown the importance of know- 
ing the relation of Christ to Chris- 
tian ity ; we are now to define what that rela- 
tion is. 

Our labour will be facilitated by the pre- 
liminary inquiry, What is Christianity ? 
Christianity is not a republication of the 
religion of nature ; it is not a new edition of 
the laws of Noah or of Moses ; it is not a 
ritual ; it is not a treatise on science ; it is not 
a refined and superior phase of Deism ; it is 
not a purer code of morality and virtue; it is 
not an expansion of the Golden Rule; it is not 
a muezzin call to repentance and prayer. 
Whatever it may borrow or appropriate or 
comprise of any or all of these, none of them 

23 



24 



"the cheist of god/' 



can assume to be the characteristic feature of 
Christianity. They act but a subordinate 
and auxiliary part. 

Christianity is a remedial scheme, divinely 
proposed and revealed, offering the pardon 
of sin and reconciliation with God, through 
the mediation and atonement of the incarnate 
Son of God. This Mediator is known in the 
Scriptures as the Word of God which was 
from the beginning, and was God ; the Word 
made flesh ; God manifest in the flesh ; 
the man Christ Jesus ; the Lord's Christ ; 
the Christ of God — not a Christ, but the 
Christ.* Kings, prophets and priests were 
Christs, but not one of them all was 
styled the Christ, by way of exception and 
eminence, but Jesus. He was " the Christ/' 
"that Christ!" "the Christ of God," an- 
ointed, set apart, qualified and commis- 
sioned to carry out and administer the medi- 
atorial scheme, the redemption of a lost 
world. Any definition of Christianity that 
leaves out this view is defective and imperfect. 
* Note I. p. 66. 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



25 



From this postulate we start. It is not 
necessary to waste our time in proving that 
this view is the substantial teaching of the 
Scriptures, the essence of Christianity. It is 
an acknowledged fact, " our enemies them- 
selves being judges." Levi, the Jewish an- 
tagonist of Priestley, averred that the pre- 
existence and divinity of Christ were taught 
in the Gospels, and that consequently whoever 
does not receive the same is not entitled to 
the appellation of a Christian. Coleridge, 
w T hiie still in the Socinian connection, said 
openly and plainly that it was clear enough 
Paul and John were not Unitarians. Schell- 
ing, Hegel and Strauss, however they differed 
in their theories and explanations, candidly 
conceded the doctrines of the Trinity, Incar- 
nation, Atonement, Fall of Man, and Regen- 
eration by the Holy Spirit to be contained 
and taught in the sacred canon. So did Bo- 
lingbroke. So did Newman. 

Christianity being a remedial scheme, ad- 
ministered by a Mediator, it is plain that the 
Mediator must be adequate to his task. I 
3 



26 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



grant with Parker that " personal authority 
adds nothing to a mathematical demonstra- 
tion." But Jesus was more than a teacher — 
more even than a teacher sent from God. He 
was a Redeemer. His trust was not a les- 
son, or a dogma, but a work.* 

A Mediator must he the equal of both 
parties. He must be of independent dignity, 
the peer of the highest, and capable of enter- 
ing into sympathy with the lowest. It must 
be a human hand that can reach down to the 
lowest depths of sin and sorrow; yet it must 
be more than human, to be able to elevate to 
a higher plane, not of holiness only, but of 
heaven as well. Such were the difficulties in 
the way of our salvation that none but a 
God could surmount them; none else could 
abolish death and destroy the works of the 
devil. No created being could give the same 
value and merit to his work as the Son of 
God, on account of the dignity of his person 
and the greatness of his condescension. No 
human being could prescribe laws and intro- 
* Note II., p. 67. 



THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



27 



duce a new system which could carry with it 
the same paramount authority or command- 
ing claims to respect. Add to all this that 
the office was too honourable, as well as too 
arduous, to entrust to inferior hands; nor 
was it fit that any other should inaugurate 
and control the new creation but He who 
was the author of the old. 

I am aware that an eminent divine has ad- 
vanced the opinion that the incarnation of 
the Son of God would have taken place, 
though under different conditions, had no 
redemption been needed. "The thing itself/ 7 
he says, " we may reverentially believe, would 
not the less have been. ... In this view, the 
taking on himself of our flesh by the Eternal 
Word was no makeshift to meet a mighty yet 
still a particular emergent need — a need 
which, conceding the liberty of man's will, 
and that it was possible for him to have con- 
tinued in his first state of obedience, might 
never have occurred. It was not a mere 
result and reparation of the fall — such an 
act as, except for that, would never have 



28 "THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



been ; but lay bedded at a far deeper depth 
in the counsels of God for the glory of his 
Son, and the exaltation of that race formed 
in his image and likeness." Trench's Ser- 
mon on the Only Begotten of the Father. 

Such speculations may be plausible, they 
may be not unreasonable, they may be harm- 
less ; but they are extra-scriptural, they have 
no warrant from the divine word, they are 
nothing but speculations. We conceive that 
"we are not authorized by Scripture to think 
any incarnation probable save only in con- 
nection with redemption. Had the one never 
taken place, neither would the other. We 
have nothing to do with a possible incarna- 
tion following a possible state of innocence; 
it should suffice for us that the Lamb was 
slain in the divine foreknowledge and pur- 
pose before the foundation of the world. We 
are not to be wise " above what is written." 
1 Cor. iv. 6. We may relegate it to keep 
company with that subtle question of the 
schoolmen, u Whether God loves a possible 
angel more than an actual insect ?" We are 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 29 



only concerned with the incarnation as a his- 
toric fact resulting from the necessity of re- 
demption, and God's purpose relating to it. 
As the means to accomplish that redemption, 
the incarnation was, as theologians have 
termed it, a conditional necessity, or a neces- 
sity of consequence. The satisfaction and 
obedience of the priestly office, and the inter- 
cession of Christ in our behalf, required the 
assumption of our nature, and the fulfilling 
of the same conditions of humanity as our- 
selves, as most conducive to the divine glory 
and the best adapted to secure our benefit. 

Redemption being established as the essen- 
tial feature of Christianity and of the relation 
of Christ to it, it is obvious that opposition 
to the divinity of Christ must spring from 
one or more of these four fundamental errors : 

1. An undue exaltation of human reason, 
from which follows the rejection of every- 
thing incomprehensible or miraculous, as well 
as of the inspiration of the Scriptures. 

2. Incorrect views of the vindicatory jus- 
tice of God, and ascribing to him a weakly 

3 * 



30 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



lenient character, as pardoning sin without 
satisfying justice ; whereas God is represented 
in the gospel as just, while yet he justifies 
the believing sinner. 

3. Inadequate views of the evil of sin and 
of its nature, and of the exceeding breadth 
of the divine law. 

4. Overrating human ability to obey and 
please God, to recover from error, to reform 
from sin, and to lead a virtuous and holy life. 

Of course, a man who is in error on these 
points feels the doctrines of the atonement, 
regeneration, faith and grace to be unneces- 
sary, and consequently the interposition of a 
divine Redeemer is superfluous. The reverse 
of this shows us why to one deeply convinced 
of sin, and having a vivid perception of the 
spirituality of the divine law, direct argu- 
ments for the divinity of Christ are little 
needed, and, as a matter of fact, little de- 
manded. The subjection or experimental 
nature of the mental process is accurately as 
well as feelingly portrayed by John Newton, 
in his well-known lines, which are so much 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



31 



to the point that I shall not apologize for 
repeating them : 

" Some take him a creature to be — 
A man or an angel at most ; 
Sure these have not feelings like me, 
Nor know themselves wretched and lost. 

"So guilty, so helpless am I, 

I durst not confide in his blood, 
Nor on his protection rely, 
Unless I were sure he is GodP 

In this attempt to ascertain the relation of 
Christ to Christianity, we have arrived at the 
conclusion identical with the orthodox faith 
of the Church catholic, that Christianity is a 
scheme of redemption, to which a divine Re- 
deemer is essentia] ; he is its Alpha and 
Omega, uniting two natures in one person — 
the divine taking unto itself the human, yet 
without confusion, or either being lost in the 
other ; not a demi-god, not a man-god, but a 
God-man ; God manifest in the flesh ; Jeho- 
vah-Jesus. 



CHAPTEE IV. 



SCIlIFTUItE Fit OOFS OF THE DIVINITY OF 
CHRIST. 

IT remains that we weigh the proofs and 
arguments which establish the divinity of 
Christ and substantiate the position which 
w-e have taken. 

The customary line of argument, or the 
Scripture proof, must be familiar to every 
one who is at all well read on the subject. A 
brief outline only is necessary : 

1. The names and titles of God are given 
to our Lord Jesus Christ — God, Jehovah, the 
Beginning and the Ending, the First and the 
Last. 

2. The attributes of Deity are ascribed to 
Christ; such as eternity, omniscience, om- 
nipotence, omnipresence and immutability. 

3. The works of Godhead are ascribed to 

32 



"the cheist of god." 33 



him ; as creation, preservation, providence, 
miracles, the resurrection and the final judg- 
ment. 

4. Divine worship is paid and should be 
paid to Christ. It was paid by the disciples, 
by Thomas, by Stephen, by the host of the 
redeemed in heaven and by the angels. (And 
it is noticeable that " the Lamb in the midst 
of the throne" is the object of worship, but 
is not himself a worshipper.) Divine wor- 
ship is implied in the formula of baptism 
and in the apostolic benediction. It is also 
commanded : " Let all the angels of God 
worship him !" Heb. i. 6. " That all men 
should honour the Son, even as they honour 
the Father." John v. 23. If divine worship 
be paid to the Father, divine worship is to 
be paid to the Son as well. 

This array of Scripture proofs is felt to be 
conclusive and satisfactory by the general 
mind of Christendom. Opponents — i. e., the 
latest of them — have abandoned the task of 
contesting them ; they acknowledge, as Kenan 
and Parker, that the record is essentially au- 



34 "THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



thentic. This much progress at least has been 
made in the discussion of the question, and 
the facts may be regarded as settled. They 
adopt the shorter and easier method of a 
wholesale denial of the authority of any scrip- 
tural statements whatsoever. They deny the 
possibility of a book-revelation or of mir- 
acles ; and they eulogize the absolute religion 
w r hich recognizes the identity of all objects 
of worship, idol or fetish, 

" Jehovah, Jove, or Lord/ 

and places the savage and the idolater on a 
level with the saint and the apostle. 

It has been said that the age has outgrown 
or become indifferent to the old-fashioned 
method of argument from Scripture proofs, 
and that newer and fresher arguments are ex- 
acted. 'Whether this be so or not, the cham- 
pions of Orthodoxy are not unprepared to 
meet the emergent need. They have more 
than a single arrow in their quiver. They 
can descend to a lower plane, and argue, if it 
be necessary, from the Humanity to the 



THE CHEIST OF GOD. 



35 



Divinity. We will meet our antagonists on 
their own ground, and let them choose their 
own weapons. If we can cut off Goliath's 
head with his own sword, the triumph will 
be so much the greater. 



CHAPTER V. 



CHRIST'S CWJr C JO AIMS AJSJD ASSEltTIOXS. 

THE divinity of Christ is argued from his 
own claims and assertions. Christ must 
have been divine, or else a deceiver. 

Consider how careful Paul and Barnabas 
were at Lystra; and how the angel in the 
Apocalypse shuddered at the idea of receiv- 
ing a worship to which he had no right. 
Remember how Peter raised the centurion, 
saying, " Stand up ! I myself also am a man." 
And then contrast with these modest acts the 
numerous intimations of Jesus that he was 
possessed of a superior nature, and how often 
he accepted homage and worship. He asked 
the Pharisees, " How is Christ at once David's 
Son and David's lord?" — one way his in- 
ferior, in another sense his superior? There 

36 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 37 



was but one interpretation that could have 
solved the enigma. It would have been the 
equivalent of that description of him in the 
Revelation, as "the root and the offspring of 
David. " He here represented himself as the 
maker and superior of David. 

Weigh well this promise : " Every one 
that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sis- 
ters, or father, or mother, or children, or lands, 
for my name's sake, shall receive a hundred- 
fold, and shall inherit everlasting life/' Matt, 
xix. 20. Who is this that makes such large 
promises ? A reformer might be expected to 
ensure rewards to his followers for submitting 
to sacrifices for the sake of truth, or for the sake 
of God; but he would lay himself open to the 
charge of arrogance should he presume to 
enrol disciples or to encourage them to 
brave martyrdom solely on his own account. 
Neither Moses nor John the Baptist ever 
dared to say, " Every one that hath forsaken 
all, even to the relinquishment of life itself, 
for my name's sake, shall receive a hundred- 
fold and shall inherit everlasting life" But 

4 



38 "the cheist of god." 



Christ unhesitatingly promises the largest 
recompense possible, and the fullest rewards 
of heaven itself, simply for faithful personal 
adherence. What could God himself say 
more ? 

But this is not all. This individual, who 
distributes heavenly crowns and paradises in 
such profusion, takes his stand one day, and 
says, " Behold ! a greater than Solomon is 
here ; a greater than Jonas is here !" Now 
what would you have thought if Jeremiah 
had said, I am greater than Isaiah ? or if Mai- 
achi had said, I am greater than Jonah? or if 
Herod had said, I am greater than Solomon, 
I am greater than David ? What would you 
have thought of any other young man of 
thirty-three, the rich young ruler, or Saul of 
Tarsus, or John of Galilee, who would have 
said he was greater and wiser than all the 
kings, sages and prophets that had ever 
lived ? Would you not have pronounced it 
insufferable presumption, vanity and self- 
conceit? would it not have filled you with 
disgust? Would you not have been tempted 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD.". 39 

to retort his own words, u Blessed are the 
meek! Blessed are the poor in spirit! Go 
and sit down in the lowest room ! He that 
exalteth himself shall be abased. Physician, 
heal thyself!" Now Jesus did say all this. 
He did proclaim himself greater and wiser 
than David, Solomon and Jonas ; and you 
have to explain it on principles compatible 
with your retaining your respect for him. 

Great pains have been taken to prove the 
Messiahship of Jesus, but it looks like a 
work of supererogation, in view of the fact 
that he himself asserted it. It is now simply 
a question of his veracity. Three times he 
did so — to Peter on his confession, to the 
Samaritan woman, and to the high priest on 
oath. He claimed the title of Christ in ex- 
plicit and unequivocal terms, with full know- 
ledge of all that it imported — that it was the 
synonym of Son of God, Son of the Blessed, 
Only Begotten of the Father, the Word made 
flesh, Immanuel, the Child born, the Son 
given, Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty 
God, the Prince of the kings of the earth, 



40 "THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



King of kings and Lord of lords ; y et know- 
ing all this, and the tremendous consequence, 
he said in so many words, " I am the Christ !" 
and said it under oath, so that if it was not 
so, to falsehood was added the crime of per- 

J U1 T- 

But Jesus went farther than this. He per- 
mitted Thomas unrebuked to address him, 
" My Lord and my God !" He told the Jews, 
"I and my Father are one;" and they 
charged him with blasphemy, and were about 
to stone him because he, being a man, made 
himself equal with God. On this occasion, 
and before the high priest, how easy it would 
have been to have disclaimed blasphemy, and 
to have explained that he only meant he was 
the Son of God as all good men are the sons 
of God, and that he and the Father were one 
in counsel. This would have disarmed the 
severity of his judges. But the explanation 
was not given. Thus Christ declined to ex- 
plain away any intimations of his possessing 
a divine and superior nature, when he had 
ample opportunities of doing so, when an 



THE CHEIST OF GOD." 41 



explanation was desired, when it would have 
secured his own safety and that of his ad- 
herents^ and, to say no more, when such an 
explanation, if called for, was to be expected 
of every honest man under the circumstances. 

Now he was too wise to be needlessly am- 
biguous. He was too clear-headed to be de- 
ceived, even self-deceived. He never showed 
any of that headlong, impetuous, unreasoning 
enthusiasm out of which dupes, even the 
dupes of their own fancies, such as Moham- 
med, are made. That hypothesis is utterly 
untenable. He was no dupe. Was he then 
a crafty impostor, making dupes of others? 
Renan has insinuated this in his version of 
the raising of Lazarus, but the insinuation is 
too shocking and revolting to be for a mo- 
ment listened to. And no one has done more 
to render it improbable than this same Re- 
nan, whose glowing eulogies on Jesus rival 
the finest of Rousseau or Channing, Sherlock 
or Maclaurin. Our Lord was too pure and 
spotless to have encouraged anything like 
deception. His admitted character precludes 
4* 



42 "THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



all imputation of sinister or unworthy mo- 
tives. He could not be a deceiver, for his 
nature and character forbade it; he must 
have intended to convey the meaning that he 
was divine, and to lead all men, with adoring 
Thomas, to call him their Lord and their 
God. 

Oh ! if I could be convinced that Jesus 
had lent himself in the faintest degree to the 
work of deception, that he made pretensions 
which were baseless, that he was what I 
shrink from saying, I would lose all respect 
for him ; I would renounce him ; I w r ould 
spurn him ; I would scorn the name of Chris- 
tian; and then I would sit down, with 
crushed and broken heart, among the ashes 
of fond hopes dead and lost beyond resurrec- 
tion. I would abandon myself to grief, and 
call the world to mourn and grieve with me, 
for " we thought it had been He who should 
have redeemed us," and we have found our- 
selves mistaken, deluded, betrayed, desolate ! 
"They have taken away my Lord, and I 
know not where they have laid him." 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



43 



But hark ! from the unseen world there 
comes a voice to dispel any rising doubt, to 
reassure any momentary infirmity of faith. 
It is the voice that spoke to Daniel, that 
spoke to John : "I, Jesus, the root and the 
offspring of David. I am he that liveth and 
was dead, and am alive again for evermore. 
I am Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and 
the Ending ; the First and the Last." There 
is but one being in the wide universe that 
can say, " I am he that liveth and was dead, 
and behold ! I am alive again for evermore." 
And there is but one being in the universe 
that ought to say, " I am the Beginning and 
the Ending, the First and the Last." But 
the voice is one and the same.* Away with 
doubts ! away with hesitation ! I have found 
my Saviour; and have found in him my God ! 
Jehovah, Jesus ! " made of the seed of David 
according to the flesh, and declared to be the 
Son of God with power according to the 
Spirit of holiness !" 

* Addenda, III., p. 69. 



CHAPTEE VI. 



Christ iNTBii ceding as a claimant 
and eqvai. 

THE intercession of Christ as a claimant and 
equal opens up another line of argument. 
The Scriptures explicitly teach what his- 
tory and conscience are compelled to acknow- 
ledge — that however upright man was once 
found, and in favour with God, the whole 
race has long lost that primitive integrity, 
and has forfeited the pleasing privilege of 
unfettered intercourse with their Creator. 
We are taught that we can be restored and 
introduced again to favour only by a worthy 
Mediator, acceptable to both parties.* Who 

* " Socrates obscurely hints at this necessity of a teach- 
er to instruct us how to approach the Deity, to remove 
all mists from the mind, and help to distinguish good 
from evil." Sydenham and Taylor's Plato, " The Second 
Alcibiades," vol. iv. p. 612. 
44 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 45 



shall the Mediator be ? He must be either a 
man, or an angel, or an equal. 

But he cannot be a man, because all 
Adam's race, from the apostate progenitor to 
his latest son, lie involved in the same con- 
demnation. " What is man, that he should 
be clean ? and he which is born of a woman, 
that he should be righteous." Job xv. 14, 
" For there is not a just man upon earth that 
doeth good, and sinneth not." Eccles. vii. 20. 
" And it is written, there is none righteous, 
no, not one." Rom. iii. 10. " If w r e say that 
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the 
truth is not in us." 1 John i. 8. Examine 
the best of men. Hear Elijah under the 
juniper tree confessing : " O Lord ! I am 
not better than my fathers. 5 ' 1 Kings xix. 4. 
Hear Isaiah, in view of the unveiled glory 
of Jehovah, saying with trembling voice, 
" Woe is me, for I am undone ; because I am 
a man of unclean lips !" Isa. vi. 5. Hear 
Daniel, the man honoured with the title of 
" Beloved of God," acknowledging that he 
was not without cause of self-reproach : 



46 "THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



" And while I was speaking and praying, 
and confessing my sin, and the sin of my peo- 
ple." And in his prayer, how did he plead ? 
u O my God, incline thine ear and hear; 
open thine eyes and behold our desolations ; 
for we do not present our supplications be- 
fore thee for our righteousness, but for thy 
great mercy" Dan. ix. 18, 20. With humility, 
therefore, must mankind acquiesce in the 
solemn declaration of the Psalmist : " None 
of them can by any means redeem his brother, 
or give to God a ransom for him." Ps. 
xlix. 7. 

It is true that intercession is a Christian 
duty, and God has heard the prayers of some 
mortals, as Abraham and Elias. But this 
proves nothing to our present purpose. God 
also heard the prayer of wicked Ahab, be- 
cause " he humbled himself before God." 1 
Kings xxL 29. Abraham acknowledged him- 
self "but dust and ashes." Gen. xviii. 27. 
These were all appeals to sovereign mercy; 
they advanced no claim; they would have 
considered it presumption to do so. They 



THE CHRIST OF GOD." . 47 



laid the Supreme Disposer of all things un- 
der no obligation ; he could have rejected 
their petitions as he did those of the prophet 
Jeremiah thrice : " Pray not there for this peo- 
ple, neither make intercession to me ; for I 
will not hear thee/*' Jer. vii. 16 ; xi. 14 ; xiv. 
11. He repeated four times to the prophet 
Ezekiel : " Though these three men, Noah, 
Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should de- 
liver but their own souls by their righteous- 
ness, saith the Lord God." Ezek. xiv. 14, 16, 
18, 20. An appeal to mercy, or a plea that 
may be rejected at pleasure, are on a very 
different footing from an imperative claim, 
which is not to be rejected. 

Nor may an angel undertake the office of 
intercessor; for we are told, " Behold, he 
put no trust in his servants ; and his angels 
he charged with folly. . . . Behold, he put- 
teth no trust in his saints ; yea, the heavens 
are not clean in his sight." Job iv. 18; xv. 
15. The Hebrew seer witnessed an expres- 
sion of their own sentiments, when, dazzled 
by the intolerable splendour of the thrice 



48 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



holy One, they shaded their faces with their 
wings, as at once unable and unworthy to 
look upon the face of Him that sat upon the 
throne, and as blushing for their best ser- 
vices. Isa. vi. 2. A parallel attestation was 
witnessed by the exile of Patmos. When 
the acclamations of the redeemed resounded 
through heaven, ascribing salvation to God 
and the Lamb as alone able to accomplish it, 
all the host of surrounding angels gave their 
assent, falling prostrate and adoring, and 
saying, Amen! Rev. vii. 11, 12. The holy 
apostle seems to have had in his eye the in- 
adequacy of angelic intercession, when he 
said, " For unto which of the angels said he 
at any time, Thou art my Son, this day have 
I begotten thee?" Heb. i. 5. They are but 
messengers, servants, like the winds and the 
lightnings, addressed in very different lan- 
guage from that addressed to the Son. "But 
unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, 0 God y 
is for ever and ever."* Heb. i. 8. Truly 

* "The Holy Ghost here asserts the essential deity of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. Of his enemies whom he will 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



49 



is the Son "better than the angels." Heb. 
i. 4. 

Since, therefore, neither men nor angels 
dare presume, on the ground of their merits, 
to stand up and plead with God that he 
would remit the sins of a lost world for the 
sake of their intercession, and of their inter- 
cession solely, we are driven to embrace the 
only alternative — of concluding that He who 
can do so, who has done so, and who has a 
right to do so must be an equal, and is to be 
viewed in no other light. 

When proclamation was made in the heav- 

make his footstool, some have indeed controverted this 
position, and endeavoured to blot out the text from the 
catalogue of his witnesses. Instead of u thy throne, O 
God/' they would compel us, by a perversion of 
phraseology, of figure and of sense, to read, 1 God is thy 
throne converting the great and dreadful God into a 
symbol of authority in one of his own creatures. The 
Scriptures it seems may utter contradictions or impiety, 
but the divinity of the Son they shall not attest. The 
crown, however, which ''flourishes on his head," is not 
to be torn away, nor the anchor of our hope to be 
wrested from us, by the rude hand of licentious criti- 
cism." Messiah's Throne, by Dr. John M. Mason, p. 2. 
5 



50 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



enly court, " Who is worthy to open the book 
and to loose the seals thereof?" we are told, 
" no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither un- 
der the earth, was able to open the book, 
neither to look thereon." Rev. v. 3. Then 
the Lion of the tribe of J udah, the Root of 
David, looking like a Lamb as it had been 
slain — titles Avhich unequivocally describe our 
Lord Jesus Christ — was found alone worthy, 
and so confessed, and greeted with honours 
and eulogies similar to those which were be- 
stowed on the Father Almighty when his 
worship was celebrated. Compare Rev. v. 12 
with Rev. vii. 12. And it is to be observed 
that this Lamb slain, this Lion of Judah, 
this Root of David, is spoken of as occupy- 
ing "the midst of the throne," both in this 
narrative, and in a subsequent passage; "the 
Lamb which is in the midst of the throne." 
Rev. vii. 17. But "the midst of the throne" 
is the central seat, the place of universal and 
supreme authority ; as was intimated by the 
mother of James and John, when she asked 
that they might sit one on Christ's right hand 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 51 

and the other on his left in his kingdom. To 
sit at the monarch's right hand is a common 
scriptural term for the place of honour. Now 
is it conceivable that the Almighty would 
vacate the central seat, the place of omnipo- 
tent and supreme authority for a moment, 
and surrender it to any creature, however ex- 
alted, however worthy ! Even Pharaoh 
would not so divest himself; " Only in the 
throne/' said he, " will I be greater than 
thou." This idea would be as monstrous as 
to revive the foolishest fables of old my- 
thology, and to repeat the adventure of 
Phaeton and the Sun ! He who occupies 
" the midst of the throne " can be no other 
than He who wields the thunder, who hath 
all power in heaven and on earth, who hath 
the keys of death and of hell, who openeth 
and no man shutteth, and who shutteth and 
no man openeth, and from whose sentence 
there is no appeal, because there is none 
higher to whom to appeal. If such a per- 
sonage assumes the attitude of intercession, 
we may be sure it is an equal, he pleads as a 



52 



THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



king with a king. And a king he told 
Pilate he was, though his kingdom was not 
of this world. 

The foregoing position is corroborated by 
two passages of Scripture, wherein Christ is 
in so many words, in ipsissimw verbis, called 
the equal of God. 

The first passage to be cited is in the 
prophecy of Zechariah: " Awake, O sword, 
against my Shepherd, and against the man 
that is my fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts; 
smite the Shepherd, and the sheep will be 
scattered." Zech. xiii. 7. This passage was 
applied to himself by our Lord on the night 
of his capture and the dispersion of his dis- 
ciples : " Then said Jesus unto them, All ye 
shall be offended because of rue this night ; 
for it is written, I will smite the Shepherd, 
and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered 
abroad." Matt. xxvi. 31. Christ here pro- 
claimed himself to be the Shepherd of 
Zechariah, consequently, " the man who was 
the fellow of the Lord of Hosts." The 
word "fellow" is translated " neighbour" in 



THE CHRIST OF GOD." 53 



Lev. vi. 2, meaning a fellow-man, of the 
same nature and race. He whom God calls 
his neighbour, or fellow-God, must be of the 
same divine nature, eonsubstantial and co- 
equal — homoousion. Such is the interpretation 
of the learned German commentator, John 
Henry Michseli. 

The other passage is from the New Testa- 
ment : " Let this mind be in you, which was 
also in Christ Jesus ; who, being in the form 
of God, thought it not robbery to be equal 
with God; but made himself of no reputa- 
tion, and took upon him the form of a ser- 
vant, and was made in the likeness of men." 
Phil. ii. 5-7. This is an argument for con- 
descension from the example of Christ. If it 
has any force it is this : Christ being pre- 
existent and superior, stooped to become man. 
Men were his inferiors. He "took upon him" 
this inferior condition, the form of a servant. 
None of us can say that we voluntarily take 
upon us human nature; we have no choice or 
voice in the matter. But Christ voluntarily 
chose to assume it when he needed not do so. 

5 * 



54 U THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



In so doing he abandoned a superior station 
to do good to mankind. In that superior 
station he was no less than equal with God, 
and on such terms of equality that he could 
say, " I and my Father are one." If Christ 
were not originally divine, equal with God, 
the second person of the Trinity, and did not 
stoop in taking upon him our nature, it is 
not easy to see wherein the force of the argu- 
ment lies. 

Here then we have two passages of Scrip- 
ture which, without any circumlocution call 
Christ the equal of God. When our Lord 
therefore undertakes to intercede, he does it 
right royally, " as a priest upon his throne." 
Zech. vi. 13. He does not demean his regal 
dignity, he does not beseech with abject sup- 
ination, he does not beg . on bended knee, he 
does not make a piteous appeal to mercy and 
compassion ; he stands erect and speaks as one 
equal with another. Even in his intercessory 
prayer after the Eucharist, in what is called 
his state of humiliation, he said, " Father, / 
will" — "I will that they whom thou hast 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



55 



given me, be with me where I am ; that they 
may behold my glory which thou hast given 
me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of 
the world." John xvii. 24. If Christ interceded 
thus in his days of humiliation, just on the eve 
of his crucifixion, much more is it likely that he 
will use the same mode of address in his state 
of exaltation. With added emphasis we may 
imagine him saying, " Father, I will, it is 
my desire, my wish, I claim it as a matter, 
not of favour but of right, as the purchase 
of my sacrifice, the reward of my sufferings. 
Father, I will." And he asks, because that 
he will receive no repulse, he is confident 
that his intercession will be prevalent, "for 
him the Father heareth always." But he 
heareth him as a claimant and as an equal. 
There was Christ " God manifest in the flesh." 



CHAPTEE VII. 



SUtttAHTTMAUT EXCELLENCE OF CHBIST'S 
CSABACTEM. 

1 NOTHER argument for the divinity of 



Christ is based on the suprahuman ex- 
cellence of his character, intellectually and mor- 
ally considered. It was recognized by the 
Apostle Paul ; " that in all things he might 
have the pre-eminence." Col. i. 18. And his 
was a towering pre-eminence. 

The miracle which the Arabian prophet 
feigned was fulfilled in its essential conditions 
in Jesus. Born of poor parents, and work- 
ing as a humble artisan, his early years were 
spent in the rudest and most unpolished part 
of Palestine, a region that was a byword for 
its want of culture. Thus he was precluded 
from the educational advantages of the priv- 
ileged classes; he was one of the plebeians 




56 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



57 



who were denounced as accursed for their un- 
acquaintance with the law. Awn re of this, 
the Jews in their surprise at the wisdom ex- 
hibited by Christ, exclaimed, "Whence hath 
this man letters, having never learned ?" 
The difficulty was admitted by Jesus himself, 
when he said, " My doctrine is not mine, but 
His that sent me." John vii. 16; "As my 
Father hath taught me, I speak these things." 
John viii. 28. 

It will certainly be admitted to be. a rare 
occurrence for a man who had thus grown up 
to emerge from a sphere of society unfavour- 
able to the delicacies of sentiment, the refine- 
ments of decorum, the niceties of language 
and the proprieties of polished life, and ele- 
vate himself into contact with a cultured and 
literary society; and when thus elevated, 
habitually deport and sustain himself with 
uniform dignity, simple modesty, faultless 
propriety and inimitable grace. 

Such was his commanding eloquence that 
while the populace hung delighted on his 
lips, and even publicans and reprobates felt 



58 "THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



the charm, the critics, the literati, the arro- 
gant and jealous scholastics could detect no 
sophistry in his reasonings, no inconsistency 
in his doctrines, no weakness in his argument, 
no inelegance in his style. His maxims, his 
apologues, his public discourses, his private 
advice, his disputations with subtle antago- 
nists, whom he reduced to pitiable if not 
ludicrous silence, his pathetic laments over 
the follies and vices of the age, his affection- 
ate and tender consolations to the mourner, 
his expostulations, his reproofs, his familiar 
conversation, are all characterized by a seri- 
ousness and dignity befitting one whose er- 
rand was so important. Considered in a 
literary point of view alone, these discourses 
and remarks are masterpieces of composition. 
The style is pure, chaste, nervous, adapted to 
every occasion ; bold and figurative for the 
Oriental mind, profound and acute for the 
captious and well-drilled disputant, and sim- 
ple and unadorned for the disciples who 
thirsted for knowledge alone; now full of melt- 
ing pathos, again rising to the true sublime. 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



59 



Another trial is remarkable, which in any 
other would be styled the highest order of 
genius. I mean the graphic skill with which 
our Lord in a moment presents to our view 
a striking scene. The picture needs not the 
tedious labour of months • two or three 
strokes delineated by a master's hand, two 
or three of the most appropriate and charac- 
teristic features dashed on the canvas with- 
out an effort, give us at once a vivid repre- 
sentation that satisfies the mind with its 
richness and startles by its truth. 

The logical order and dependence of 
every process of reasoning, the rapid intu- 
ition which lies back of all ratiocination, the 
readiness with which apt passages of Scrip- 
ture are cited, the pure ethics, and sober, 
calm, impressive style of the didactic dis- 
courses evince a clear mind, a profound ob- 
servation and a discriminating judgment.* 

* "Christ never lost the balance of mind under ex- 
citement, nor the clearness of vision under embarrass- 
ment ; he never violated the most perfect good taste in 
anv of his sayings. Is such an intellect — clear as the 



60 



THE CHEIST OF GOD. 



To constitute a perfect character, there 
should be a complete harmony between the 
intellectual and the active powers, that en- 
thusiasm may be checked and moderated by 
cool judgment; and on the other hand, that 
the sound decisions of the judgment may be 
preserved from a repellent coldness or aus- 
terity by warmth of feeling and ready sym- 
pathy. Viewed in this light, what a noble 
character is presented to our inspection in the 
Prophet of Nazareth ! A clear-sighted and 
zealous reformer, he avoided on the one side 
timidity and weakness ; on the other, petu- 
lance, precipitance and presumption. We 
are disposed to exclaim with the astonished 
apparitors sent to apprehend him, "Never 
man spake like this man!" May we not add, 
Never could mere man speak thus; God must 
be with him ) and he can he no less than God! 

sky, bracing as the mountain air, sharp and penetrating 
as a sword, thoroughly healthy and vigorous, always 
ready and always self-possessed — liable to a radical and 
most serious delusion concerning his own character and 
mission ? Preposterous imagination !" Schaff's Per- 
son of Christ , p. 141. 



THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



61 



And this is just what John asserts in the 
first verses of his gospel. 

The doctrines which formed the staple of 
Christ's teaching were most sublime, pure, 
simple and necessary. They embraced the 
divine unity, spirituality, paternity and 
providence; the immortality of the soul; 
the pardon of sin ; repentance ; faith ; purity ; 
prayer ; spiritual worship ; love ; self-sacri- 
fice ; humility; meekness; forgiveness of in- 
juries. In brief, it has been well said, that 
" of all the spiritual truth existing in the 
world at this moment, not only is there not a 
single important idea which is not found in 
the words of Christ, but all the most import- 
ant ideas can be found nowhere else, and 
have their sole fountain in his mind. From 
his mind there shone a light which neither 
Egypt, nor India, nor Greece, nor Rome had 
ever kindled, which no age before his day 
ever saw, and none since, except in him 
alone, has ever seen."* 

While w r e pay unqualified reverence and 
* Young's Christ of History, p. 182. 

6 



62 THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



admiration to the intellectual pre-eminence 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and bow unhesi- 
tatingly to his claim to be "the Liffht of the 
world," his lofty virtue, his unspotted holi- 
ness, his faultless and all-embracing goodness, 
lead us to esteem him as no less a pharos in 
the moral world. But I shall not descant on 
the details of Christ's moral excellence. That 
has been sufficiently done by various able 
pens, and the concessions of unbelievers have 
been so ample and almost unanimous upon 
this score as to render the task here unneces- 
sary.* We may assume, for the purpose of 
our argument, the moral excellence of Christ, 
as an admitted and recognized fact. 

But there is a feature in Christ's piety 
which is deserving of marked attention. In 
his discourses, in his conversations, in his 
prayers, there is not a trace of penitence, 

* See Ambrose's Looking unto Jesus; Scougal's Life 
of God in the Soul of Man ; McLaurin on Glorying in 
the Cross of Christ ; Dwight's Theology ; Wilson's 
Evidence of Christianity, sec. xvii.; Young's Christ of 
History; SchafF's Person of Christ. See the latter also 
for testimonies of unbelievers. 



"the cheist of god." 



63 



there is not the smallest confession of sin. 
In the nervous and elegant lan<mao;e of a 
popular writer, "Human piety begins with 
repentance. But Christ in the character 
given him never acknowledges sin. . . . Be- 
ginning with an impenitent or unrepentant 
piety, he holds it to the end, and brings no 
visible stain upon it. Now one of two 
things must be true. He was either sinless, 
or he was not. If sinless, what greater, more 
palpable exception to the law of human de- 
velopment than that a perfect and stainless 
being has for once lived in the flesh ? If not — 
which is the supposition required of those 
wdio deny everything above the range of hu- 
man development— then we have a man taking 
up a religion without repentance — a religion 
not human but celestial, a style of piety never 
taught him in his childhood, and never con- 
ceived or attempted among men : more than 
this, a style of piety withal wholly unsuited 
to his real character as a sinner, holding it as 
a figment of insufferable presumption to the 
end of life, and that in a way of such un- 



64 



"THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



faltering grace and beautv as to command 
the homage of the human race ! Could there 
he a wider deviation from all we know of 
mere human development?"* 

The argument is complete. To add more 
would only make it more diffuse, and perhaps 
weaken its strength. The conclusion which 
we have reached is this : The jisychological 
conditions of Christ's life and character are 
such as to demand the recognition of a 
more than human intellect, and a more than 
mortal goodness. " The manhood of Christ," 
says one writer, " as it appealed to the senses 
and the minds of the men of his own times, 
supplies and sustains the proof of his god- 
hood."~\ "The very perfection of his hu- 
manity," says another, " is a proof of his 
divinity. The indwelling of God in him is 
the only satisfactory solution of his amazing 
character."! 

By a universal instinct of the heart every 

* Buslinell's Nature and the Supernatural, chap. x. 
f Young's Christ of History, p. 21. 
% SchafTs Person of Christ, p. 4. 



THE CHRIST OF GOD. 



65 



one that approaches him, whether infidel or 
believer, feels that he is in the presence of a 
superior Being ; he is struck with awe, and 
under an involuntary, perhaps unconscious 
but irrepressible emotion of reverence, ren- 
ders his tribute of eulogy, and assents to the 
averment, " Thou art fairer than the chil- 
dren of men !"* 



RECAPITULATION. 

After showing that the knowledge of 
Christ's relation to Christianity is not an 
idle speculation, but of great practical im- 
portance and value, the author proceeded to 
define in what this relation consists ; viz, in 
the essential correlate ideas of redemption 
and a Redeemer, the exigency being such as 
to require a Redeemer at once human and 
divine — a Theanthropos, a God-man. The 
defence of this position was then attempted. 
The usual Scripture proofs were adduced of 
the ascription to Christ of the names, titles, 
attributes, works and worship of God. Next, 

* Note IV., p. 72. 

6 * 



66 "THE CHRIST OF GOD." 



our Lord's own claims and assertions were 
examined and considered conclusive, as it 
was impossible that he should have been 
either deceived or a deceiver. It was then 
shown that the Mediator between God and 
man must be necessarily divine, and that 
Christ interceded as a claimant and equal. 
Finally, it was argued from Christ's pre-emi- 
nent excellence, both intellectually and mor- 
ally considered — in other words, from the 
perfection of his human character — that he 
could not have been other than divine as 
well as human. " Fairer than the children 
of men;" lC better than the angels;" "the 
man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of 
Hosts!" 

I^OTES. 

I. — The Title, Christ, p. 24. 
There were others besides our blessed Redeemer who 
bore the name of Jesns. There was Jesus, the son of 
Sirach ; Jesus, a friend of Paul ; and Joshua was ren- 
dered in Greek by the same name. But the name Christ 
was only a title of office or condition. It signified any 
one who was anointed. In fact, every prophet, priest or 



NOTES. 



67 



king was in this sense a Christ, or an anointed one. 
" Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no 
harm." Ps. cv. 15. Hence the name is often found with 
the prefix The; e. g., "The Christ of God," Luke ix. 
20 ; " That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." John 
xx. 31. The definite article, which is never applied to 
any other in this connection than Jesus of Nazareth, se- 
lects and singles him out as peculiar, and distinguishes 
him from all the rest of the anointed ; so true is it that 
"he was anointed with the oil of gladness above his 
fellows." Ps. lxv. 7. 

This distinction, between Jesus Christ as a mere proper 
name, and Jesus the Christ as a name of office, is a very 
important one to be observed and borne in mind. Dr. 
Scott, in his recent admirable and learned work, has 
clearly shown the depth and fulness of meaning in- 
volved in the formula, "I believe in Jesus Christ," or, 
more properly, "in Jesus the Christ." It is tantamount 
to saying, "I believe the Messiah who was promised to 
the patriarchs has come — the prophecies are already ful- 
filled, and fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth ; . . . that a 
divine man, the God-man, ivas to come, who should be the 
Messiah, and redeem his people; and I believe that 
Jesus who was born of the Virgin Mary in the days of 
Herod is that true Messiah, so long and so often prom- 
ised." The Christ of the Apostles 7 Creed, p. 40. 

• II. — Christ not a Teacher merely, but a 
Eedeemer, p. 26. 

1. That Christ was not a teacher merely, but that re- 
mission of sins is obtained through him as a Eedeemer, 



68 



NOTES. 



is the great " burden " of the prophecies, especially of 
the 53d chapter of Isaiah, who has been called, for the 
precision of his predictions, "the Fifth Evangelist," 
'"'the Evangelist before the incarnation." It was this 
chapter that converted from infidelity Wilmot, Earl of 
Rochester.* 2. The Old Testament sacrifices, types and 
figures teach, and can be made to teach, nothing else 
than remission of sin through the Redeemer. If they 
were designed only to symbolize a great teacher, then 
Christ would always have been described as a priest, 
but never as the sacrifice. Whereas he is expressly 
called " the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin 
of the world." John i. 29. 

3. "We cite further the numerous references in the 
New Testament to Christ's substitutional and vicarious 
character ; as Heb. ix. 26, "to put away sin by the sac- 
rifice of himself." " Who his own self bare our sins in 
his own body on the tree." 1 Pet. ii. 24. 

4. The soul's need of a Redeemer must be allowed to 
have its weight. Scholars coolly speculating in their 
cosy libraries may have no experiences of this sort. 
"He jests at scars who never felt a wound." But they 
have no right to ignore or make light of the experi- 
ences of others. We have on record the mental agonies 
of such men as Augustine, Luther, Brainerd, Simeon, 
Newton, Whitfield, who are not to be regarded as ex- 
ceptional ca?es, but as representatives of a numerous 
class of persons with awakened and anxious consciences, 
who have longed for relief, and found it only in the 
redemption of Jesus. 

* Burnet's Life of Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, p. 107. 



NOTES. 



69 



In truth, if we are to restrict Christ's functions to 
teaching solely, I hardly see why Paul may not be as- 
signed an equal or even superior rank. He was better 
educated, he was more voluminous, he wrote with his 
own hand ; while for Christ's few and scattered sayings 
we are dependent entirely on the report of his disciples, 
who, we know, occasionally fell into mistakes as to the 
longevity of John and as to the nature of Christ's king- 
dom. No ! we reverence Christ as " a Teacher sent 
from heaven," but much more do we adore him as our 
11 Redeemer" from sin and its consequences; man de- 
scending to our level to reach us ; God, raising us with 
his powerful hand, and making us "partakers of the 
divine nature." 

III. — Jesus, Alpha and Omega, p. 43. 

There were two distinct and separate occasions when 
the words " I am Alpha and Omega " were spoken in 
the hearing of St. John. The first time was at the 
commencement of the Apocalyptic vision : " I was in 
the Spirit on the Lord's day, and heard behind me a 
great voice as of a trumpet, saying, I am Alpha and 
Omega, the first and the last, . . . and I turned to see 
the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw 
seven golden candlesticks ; and in the midst of the seven 
candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with 
a garment down to the foot; . . . and when I saw him, 
I fell at his feet as dead. And he laid his right hand 
upon me, saying unto me, Fear not ; I am the first 
and the last; I am he that liveth and was dead; and 



70 



NOTES. 



behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen ; and have the 
keys of hell and of death." Bev. i. 10-18. 

There can be no question that the voice here is one 
and the same. It is one speech, unbroken, uninter- 
rupted. Indeed, the words, " I am the first and the last," 
and "I am he that liveth and was dead," form parts of 
the same sentence. It is therefore beyond dispute that 
the speaker who said, " I am he that liveth and was 
dead; and behold, I am alive again for evermore, and 
have the keys of hell and of death," is the same who 
said, "I am the first and the last." And there will be 
no denial that this speaker was the " One like unto the 
Son of man," the risen and glorified Christ ; for to none 
other is the description applicable. 

In the second instance, the dialogue is interrupted. 
John was about to prostrate himself at the feet of the 
angel who had acted as his guide, when the angel ve- 
hemently forbade him, saying, " See thou do it not ; for 
I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the pro- 
phets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book : 
worship God." 

Another S23eaker is now introduced — he who had 
spoken before : w And he saith unto me, Seal not the 
sayings of the prophecy of this book, for the time is at 
hand. . . . And behold, I come quickly ; and my re- 
ward is with me, to give every man according as his 
work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning 
and the end, the first and the last. ... I Jesus have 
sent mine angel to testify unto you these things -in the 
churches. I am the root and the offspring of David* 
and the bright and morning star." Rev. xxii. 9-1G. 



NOTES. 



71 



The deniers of the doctrine of the Trinity contend 
that Jesus here refused an act of worship (a thing he 
never did on earth), identifying him with the officiating 
angel. But it would be strange if any angel who had 
just refused to be worshipped should in the same breath 
affirm, " I am the first and the last." These are epithets 
which Jehovah- appropriates to himself alone. "Thus 
saith the Lord, the King of Israel and his Eedeemer, 
the Lord of Hosts, I am the first, and I am the last, and 
besides me there is no God ." Isa. lxiv. 6. ''I will not 
give my glory to another/' Isa. lxviii. 11. The decla- 
ration beyond all question imports a claim to absolute 
and exclusive divinity. 

Besides, it was the angel who pointed out the things 
revealed in the vision who declined adoration, but the 
last speaker is one different from this angel, and claims 
to have sent him: "I Jesus have sent mine angel to 
testify unto you these things in the churches." So then 
it is not Jesus who declined adoration, but the angel 
whom Jesus sent, one of the glorified prophets and 
John's fellow-servant. On the contrary, since from 
verse 13th, " I am Alpha and Omega," to verse 16th, 
." I Jesus have sent mine angel," there is no break of 
the continuity. It is the same speaker all along. Here 
then we have two cases — Rev. i. 10-18, and Hev. xxii. 
9-16 — in which the voice is one and the same. No 
critical or grammatical torturing can extract any other 
conclusion. We find our glorified Lord asserting his 
right to adoration in terms so indicative of absolute 
divinity, as shown by the citation from Isaiah, that we 
cannot conceive of anything more definite or sublime. 



72 



NOTES. 



Bat we are not yet done with this pregnant passage. 
Let us sift the sands of this river of life till we have 
extracted all their gold. In Bev. xxii. 16 we read, " I 
Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these 
things in the churches." But in the 6th verse we are 
told. " The Lord God of the holy prophets sent his an- 
gel to show unto his servants the things which must 
shortly be done." These words point to a remarkable 
identity in counsel and act between Jehovah and Jesus. 
Each claims to have sent the angel to do the same thing, 
and each claims the angel as his. It is impossible to 
reconcile these, and many other like apparent contra- 
dictions or discrepancies, except on the principles which 
we have been labouring to establish. 

IV. — Jesus a Historical Person, p. 65. 

It has been all along assumed in this dissertation that 
the four gospels are true and reliable biographies of 
Jesus, and that Jesus himself was a real, historical per- 
son. The evangelists were simply narrators, not invent- 
ors. Such invention transcended their capacities. Bous- 
seau, in his epigrammatic way, uttered a great truth 
when he said that the inventor of such a character 
would be more wonderful than the hero. Parker echoed 
the same sentiment in homelier phrase when he said 
none but a Jesus could fabricate a Jesus. 

The internal evidence may therefore be safely relied 
on as conclusive in regard to the reality of Jesus Christ 
as a living personage, and of his sayings as having been 
actually pronounced. His pre-eminent wisdom and 
goodness are then not fancies, but facts. 



